Pages

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Friends don't let friends blog drunk

I said I would do it. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do from thousands of miles away. And then I failed. I didn’t do it. Why? I don’t know. How difficult can it be, just open the emails and organize the photos for a slide presentation? Not that hard, right? Yet the emails remained unopened.

And then my sister in law, in some random act of unknown kindness, sent a one line email saying, “We’re putting the photos on a thumb drive, “ and, just like that, I’m off the hook. She didn’t know I dropped the ball, and yet she picked it up and let me off the hook.

And now that I don’t need to open the emails attachments and look at the photos, now I can. And BAM, first photo, it’s one of my parents circa 1980s and it hits me like a sucker punch to the gut and I’m floored . It’s too much and I can’t handle it. IT IS TOO MUCH. My mom has been dead since 1998. My dad just died. And I. Cannot. Handle. It.

Flash forward half an hour and I am watching crap TV with my 12 year old, texting with my sister re: the loss of brain cells and also, PS, I need to pack, because it’s almost time to go spread my dad’s ashes.

The fabric of public society lies in the manners of the individuals that make up that society. To hold this fabric together, you have to have those manners. If you don’t have them, then public society will kick you out.